Geeky Science Friday!

News for the public, not the powerful.

UN Drops the Point of No Return. Can the World Cut Emissions 18% in Just 4 Years?

The UN Environment Programme released its Emissions Gap Report Wednesday, and the verdict is blunt. Holding warming below 1.5 degrees without overshooting is over. To keep the peak near 1.7 degrees and pull temperatures back down by 2100, the world must cut emissions 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035, and 69% by 2040, all measured against this year. Current policies put us at 2.8 degrees. Every five years of delay adds another tenth. It singles out the United States, where Trump tore up the Paris agreement, as the big emitter going backward. UN chief António Guterres said “Overshoot is not surrender.” He’s right. But every year of delay gets paid for by working families, not the oil executives who caused it.

Flood and Fire Survivors Pack a Texas Hall. Why Did Only One Candidate Bother to Show Up?

Roughly half of all Americans have lived through a weather disaster, and now they’re organizing. Extreme Weather Survivors, co-founded by filmmaker Sierra Kos after Oregon’s 2020 wildfires, sends bipartisan delegations to Washington demanding a FEMA that answers the phone and aid free of political favor. They met this month in Kerrville, Texas, where flash floods killed 136 people last year. Every candidate for governor and Senate was invited. One came, Democrat Vikki Goodwin, running for lieutenant governor. Survivors described evictions from temporary housing and unpayable insurance bills. Because Trump calls climate change a hoax, they say “extreme weather” to keep Republicans in the room. Katrina survivor Alex Webber was blunt. “You can’t combat climate change unless you accept it exists.” Ignore these people and you ignore half the country.

Flesh-Eating Parasite Breaks Into American Wildlife. Can Texas Stop the Screwworm Now?

The Department of Agriculture confirmed Wednesday the first New World screwworm in American wildlife, an elk shot by a hunter on a game ranch in Pecos County, Texas. The same day, New Mexico confirmed a case in a beef cow. The fly lays eggs in open wounds, and the maggots eat living flesh. America wiped it out decades ago, but it marched north through Mexico, hit a Texas calf in June, and infected a person last year. Texas is redrawing its infested zone, and officials are begging hunters to watch for maggots and foul-smelling wounds. Once it’s loose in wild deer and elk, nobody can fence it in. This is what happens when a nation guts its public science. The parasites don’t care about your politics.

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CDC Hides Where a Measles Victim Died. What Else Isn’t Kennedy’s Agency Telling Us?

The CDC added a third measles death to its dashboard Wednesday and refused to say which state, citing privacy laws. Legal scholars say that’s nonsense. Dorit Reiss of UC Law San Francisco notes the agency already publishes case counts by state, and UCLA’s Lindsay Wiley says privacy law protects people, not states. Pennsylvania has reported 6 measles deaths this year. The CDC counts three, after quietly switching to a slower death-certificate system in September. Confirmed cases hit 4,410 nationwide, up 8% in one week and nearly double last year. Paul Offit warns the secrecy destroys trust and looks ordered from the top. Reiss calls the CDC “less transparent than in the past.” When Robert Kennedy’s health department hides the body count, parents can’t protect kids. That’s not privacy. That’s a cover-up.

Russia Stonewalls the WHO on a Plague Death. Is the World’s Pandemic Alarm Broken?

Nearly three weeks ago a 28-year-old worker at a plague institute in Irkutsk, Siberia, died of what officials called undetermined pneumonia. Local reports say she broke a test tube of live bacteria. Nearly 200 contacts were isolated and four hospitals closed. A neighboring governor said plague, then edited his statement. Moscow told the World Health Organization no plague was recorded, and the WHO still doesn’t have the full picture. The Guardian’s editors nail the point. Plague is treatable with antibiotics, so a confirmed case isn’t the scary part. The scary part is a government hiding facts, and a global warning system fraying with the rest of world politics. And Trump pulled America out of the WHO. The next pandemic won’t wait while we rebuild what we tore down.

Mutant Flu Slams the West Coast 10 Weeks Early. Doctors Beg Americans to Get the Shot Now.

Flu season arrived two and a half months early, and it started on the West Coast, not Florida. Dr. Alex Greninger at the University of Washington says one in 10 flu tests there were positive. “We’re basically seeing January levels of flu in the last week.” The wave came from Asia and it’s 98% H1N1, the 2009 pandemic strain, now carrying a mutation called G155E that dodges immunity. It already shut schools in Japan. It showed up after this year’s vaccine strains were picked, so the shot helps but isn’t a perfect match. Johns Hopkins epidemiologist Caitlin Rivers says every region is climbing. Get vaccinated today. Then ask why the richest country on earth still grows flu shots in chicken eggs. Because it’s cheap.

And that’s the way it is, Today Friday, October 23, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Did Trump’s Postal Service Just Cancel Thousands of Rural Votes?

Three days after Washington’s August primary, election workers in Stevens County expected a few dozen late ballots. They found more than 500. None will count. Across 11 rural counties in eastern Washington, nearly 2,000 ballots came in late, up from about 600 in 2022. ProPublica found out why. The Postal Service quietly cut pickups from twice a day to once at rural post offices 50 miles or more from a sorting plant. That delays the postmark. In Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon, late ballot rejections doubled or tripled in counties hit by the cuts. In urban Spokane, rejections actually fell. Garfield County tossed nearly one in 10 ballots. The cuts now cover almost 20,000 ZIP codes and at least seven tight congressional districts. The counties hit hardest voted for Trump. Washington’s Secretary of State Steve Hobbs put it plainly. “I don’t think they realized how much it was going to affect their voter base.” Experts say the question for November 3rd isn’t whether ballots get thrown out, it’s how many. When a cost cutting plan silently erases rural votes, that’s not efficiency. That’s disenfranchisement with a postage stamp. Use the drop box.

Who Pulled the Plug on Ukraine? Rubio and Hegseth Point at Musk

Last week Trump swore neither he nor Elon Musk slowed Starlink service to Ukraine. Then the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Musk himself ordered the throttling of Starlink and its military cousin Starshield, the systems Ukraine uses to fend off Russian missiles and drones. Now the story’s changed. Rubio says Ukraine’s access is governed by a private commercial contract. Hegseth says Starlink gets to make those calls under its terms of service. Trump’s answer Wednesday? “I don’t know who did it but I was not involved.” The slowdown came right after Zelensky called Trump weak for waiving Russian sanctions and buying Putin’s diesel. Republicans aren’t buying the shrug. John Cornyn called it shameful and doubts Musk acted without White House blessing. Brian Fitzpatrick said throttling Starshield, a military tool, is likely a violation of law, and he and Don Bacon threatened to block Trump’s lame duck agenda until they get answers. 23 lawmakers from both parties begged Trump to make one phone call. Meanwhile Musk has poured more than $276 million into Republican midterm campaigns. One unelected billionaire holds a kill switch over a nation’s defense, and our government can’t say who flipped it. That’s not democracy. That’s oligarchy.

Zuckerberg Blinks as California’s Billionaire Tax Closes In

Mark Zuckerberg told Meta’s board he might flee California. Not anymore. A 109-page SEC filing released Wednesday shows that from July through September, Zuckerberg told directors he was planning to move out of state to dodge what the filing calls a significant, multi-billion-dollar tax. That tax is Proposition 40, on the November 3rd ballot. A one-time 5% levy on Californians worth more than $1 billion as of January 1st. About 90% of the money goes to public health care Trump’s tax law gutted. Forbes puts Zuckerberg’s fortune at $239 billion, so his bill runs about $12 billion. Paying it could force him to sell supervoting shares and cut his control of Meta from 60.6% to 53%. So the board cut him a deal. A new class of nonvoting stock, roughly $20 billion in cash he can tap, and a Founder Alignment Agreement where he promises to stay in California for eight years. Economist Gabriel Zucman, whose research inspired the measure, called it huge. “This SEC filing is proof that the campaign for Proposition 40 is working.” For 40 years billionaires have told us tax them and they’ll leave. The richest man in California just signed a contract to stay. The threat was always a bluff. Call it.

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Three Men Break Silence and Accuse the Late Lindsey Graham of Paying Them for Sex

A new documentary from The Young Turks and Swamp Watch Studios makes an explosive allegation. Three men say the late Senator Lindsey Graham paid them for sex. One, identified only as Kelvin, says he was 17 at the time. His words in the film are direct. “I had sex with Lindsey Graham when I was 17.” Graham died in July at 71 after a sudden illness. His sister now holds his seat. The film sets the men’s accounts against Graham’s decades of public opposition to LGBTQ rights. Cenk Uygur called them serious claims that deserve public scrutiny and released the full film so viewers can judge for themselves. Let’s be clear about what we know and don’t. These are allegations. Graham isn’t here to answer them. No court has weighed them. No major outlet has independently confirmed them yet. But remember what Graham did with his power. He voted against marriage equality. He fought the Equality Act. He built a career on the politics of other people’s bedrooms. If these accounts hold up, that’s not just hypocrisy. It’s a reminder that the loudest moralizers in Washington often have the most to hide, and the people who pay for it are the ones they legislate against.

Why Is Bari Weiss Protecting the CBS Reporter Who Cheered a Bigoted Heckler?

Early Sunday morning, CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford posted video of a heckler named Tommy demanding that Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed said sure, absolutely, then asked why. Because, he said, you assume I have dual loyalties. Crawford thanked Tommy and called the answer a spectacular self own. Hours later she deleted it, admitted it broke CBS standards, and apologized. Now Zeteo’s Justin Baragona reports she won’t face any further punishment despite growing calls inside the building for her to be suspended or fired. One CBS staffer told him, “There is zero question that she should be fired.” Why no consequences? Crawford is seen as a close ally of CBS editor in chief Bari Weiss. Semafor reports Weiss has pushed reporters to tie El-Sayed to the Muslim Brotherhood. An insider said Bari doesn’t think Crawford did anything wrong. CNN’s Karen Finney said Crawford got caught red handed propping up a GOP operative spreading racist lies because El-Sayed is Muslim. When a network’s top legal reporter amplifies a loyalty test aimed at a Muslim candidate 2 weeks before an election, and the boss shrugs, that’s not journalism. That’s a campaign ad with a CBS logo on it.

Trump Scrambles on Gas Prices. Is It Too Little, Too Late for Republicans?

Less than Two weeks from the midterms, Trump is finally scrambling on gas prices, and the Guardian’s verdict is too little, too late. In Perrysburg, Ohio, Sharie Smith, 41, says soaring costs hit her life directly. In February Trump bragged about gas at $2.30. Then came his war with Iran, and prices blew past $3.60. Diesel, the fuel that runs every farm and every truck in America, has topped $6 a gallon, nearly double a year ago. Trump drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level since 1982. He cut a deal to import diesel from Vladimir Putin weeks after signing Russia sanctions into law, then blamed Zelensky for the prices. His own Energy Department just raised its crude forecast to $105 a barrel. Voters noticed. A New York Times Siena poll found 73% of likely voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of gas prices. Reuters Ipsos found 78% blame his policies for higher costs, including 64 percent of Republicans. Asked if he’s worried, Trump said, “I’m not concerned at all.” A man who promised $2 gas started a war, bought fuel from a dictator, and shrugged. Working people pay at the pump. Republicans pay on November 3rd.

And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, October 22, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Will Working People Get Stuck With the Bill When the AI Bubble Pops?

A new report from Open Markets Institute and Americans for Financial Reform says the AI boom is a bubble “primed to pop,” and working people, not billionaires, will pay for it. Authors Matthew Scherer and Maya Jenkins found Big Tech is borrowing at a reckless pace to build data centers while AI revenue stays thin. Worse, that speculative debt is being repackaged and sold to pension funds and university endowments, the same playbook that blew up in the 2008 subprime crash. The report says the stock market is overvalued to a historic degree, and Jenkins says the Trump administration is making it worse by stripping away investor protections. Their demand is simple. No bailouts for AI firms or their Wall Street backers. We’ve seen this before. Wall Street keeps the profits, and Main Street eats the losses.

Is the Middle East About to Explode Again?

The State Department has ordered non-emergency staff and their families out of the US embassy in Saudi Arabia, as Iran-backed Houthi rebels unleash deadly strikes across the kingdom. Recent attacks hit the airport in Riyadh and a civilian airport in Dammam, and a drone strike on an oil field killed two people. Four US officials told Reuters other Gulf missions will also send families home, though spokesman Tommy Pigott insists the order covers Saudi Arabia only. Remember, American diplomats only recently returned after being pulled out when the US and Israeli war on Iran began in February. Now the Houthis have opened a new front. Trump promised to end wars. Instead he’s lit a fuse across the whole region, and American families are packing their bags again.

Did Federal Agents Raid Ilhan Omar’s Home Just to Scare Her?

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is breaking her silence after federal agents raided her home on October 12. In her first interview since, she told MS Now that Homeland Security agents started pounding on her doors at six in the morning, after two and a half hours of sleep. They asked her to sign away her protections as a member of Congress. She refused. They searched for nearly five hours and walked out with 17 items, including old phones, her husband’s notebooks, a 1960s camera, and a Somali phrase book. “You don’t show up that early unless you’re trying to freak them out,” she said. Omar flatly denies the immigration fraud allegations and says she’ll have to move over death threats. When presidents sic federal agents on their critics, that’s not law enforcement. That’s intimidation.

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Trump Cheers as Rally Supporter Punches a Protester

Donald Trump was heckled at least nine times Wednesday at Clemson University, where he was stumping for Senator Darline Graham, who’s running for a full term in her late brother Lindsey’s seat. When one protester was apparently punched by a rally attendee, Trump didn’t call for calm. He celebrated. “Man, I loved that,” he told the crowd, before asking who threw the punch and comparing the man to boxer Evander Holyfield, who was sitting in the audience. Security dragged the protester out while the crowd chanted USA. The puncher stayed put. It’s the second time in days Trump has cheered violence against a heckler. A president who applauds Americans for beating up other Americans isn’t just coarsening politics. He’s giving permission.

Why Did Air Canada Just Abandon an Entire American State?

Air Canada is pulling out of South Carolina completely. The airline won’t bring back its seasonal Toronto to Charleston route in 2027, and since that was its only flight into the state, it’s a total exit. In 2024 the route flew 200 departures and more than 15,000 seats. After Trump’s tariffs and his talk of making Canada the 51st state, that collapsed to 92 departures and under 7,000 seats. Canadian trips to the US in September were down 29% from two years ago. Air Canada has already cut Minneapolis, Detroit, and Indianapolis, and WestJet is dropping Nashville, Chicago, Atlanta, and Seattle while adding Belize and Brazil. Our closest ally is voting with its wallet. Trump insulted our neighbors, and now hotel workers and restaurant owners in Charleston are paying the price

Crazy Alert. Trump Gushes Over Senator Husted’s Backside for the Third Time This Month

At a rally Tuesday in Greenville, North Carolina, Donald Trump again drifted from policy to the physique of Ohio Senator Jon Husted. The 80-year-old president told the crowd he’d been studying Husted’s body, insisting it’s not his thing, then described the senator’s backside as a “pile of muscle,” marveled at the size of his feet, and said tapping Husted’s shoulder actually hurt his hand. He called the senator a monster. It’s the third time this month, after riffs in Ohio and Kentucky. Husted, appointed to JD Vance’s old seat, is in a tight race against Sherrod Brown. Critics called the rant deranged. Ohio voters are worried about jobs, drug prices, and tariffs, and the president keeps talking about their senator’s rear end. That tells you everything about how seriously he takes them.

And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday, October 22, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Is Trump’s Presidency Collapsing? New Poll Puts His Approval at 29%

The American Research Group’s latest monthly survey is out, and the numbers are brutal. Only 29% of Americans approve of the job Donald Trump is doing. 68% disapprove. On the economy, it’s worse. Just 26% approve of how he’s handling it and 71% disapprove. That’s down from 28% in August and 35% in February. A year ago his overall approval sat at 37%. It’s slid almost every month since.

Here’s the part that should terrify every Republican on a ballot this November. Among independents, only 26% approve of Trump’s job performance and just 19% approve of his handling of the economy. Even among people who still approve of him, 56% expect the economy to be worse a year from now. 67% of Americans believe we’re already in a recession. 86% rate the economy as bad, very bad, or terrible. 71% say their own household finances are getting worse.

And listen to this. ARG says it has lost paying subscribers because clients worry unfavorable results “may upset the current administration.”

When a polling firm loses business because people are afraid to be seen measuring a president’s failure, that’s not a polling story. That’s a warning about where our democracy is headed.

Jury Hammers Meta With $25 Billion Penalty Over Trump Campaign Data Heist

Remember Cambridge Analytica? The British firm that worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign and harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a personality quiz? Facebook, now Meta, swore it protected your privacy. A jury in Santa Fe, New Mexico, decided that was a lie. 43 million lies, to be exact. That’s how many violations of New Mexico’s consumer protection law the jury found last month, one for every New Mexican exposed to a misleading statement about privacy.

Today, Judge Francis Mathew put a price on it. $25 billion. The state had asked for as much as $40 billion. Meta’s lawyers argued it shouldn’t pay more than $3.4 billion. 48 other states took an $18 billion settlement in August that released Meta from future liability. New Mexico refused and went to trial alone. Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the judgment “an unambiguous message, to Silicon Valley.” Under the state constitution, every dollar goes to public education. Meta says it’ll appeal.

This is what accountability looks like when one state refuses to let a trillion dollar corporation buy its way out. Your data helped put Trump in the White House. It took a decade, but somebody finally made them pay for it.

Europe’s Far Right Seizes On Riots To Sell Authoritarian Rule. Will Voters Buy It?

Last weekend, peaceful protests over the cost of living and crumbling public services turned violent across Europe. Paris, Marseille and Lyon saw rioting and looting. Milan and Bologna burned. Brussels saw street clashes. And the far right couldn’t be happier. The Guardian reports nationalist leaders across the continent are framing the unrest as proof that liberal government and open borders have failed, and that only they can restore order. Key elections are months away in Spain, France and Italy.

In France, Marine Le Pen said the state is collapsing amid migratory, budgetary and security chaos. Éric Zemmour called the riots the warning shots of an ethnic war. In Germany, where there were no major protests at all, AfD leader Alice Weidel warned of civil war conditions. In Spain, where housing protests pushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call a snap election next month, Vox leader Santiago Abascal branded the protesters Sánchez’s militias. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni rushed through emergency decrees creating a new crime of violent participation in a demonstration.

And Trump piled on, saying France had been “conquered, looted, and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists, and communists.”

This is the oldest play in the authoritarian handbook. Let people suffer, blame the stranger, then offer order in exchange for freedom. It’s happening in Europe. It’s happening here.

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Vance Defends Ad Exploiting Child Abuse Survivor...

Ohio’s governor’s race just hit a new low. Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign released an ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, calling her daughter a liar. Here’s what the ad left out. Acton was sexually abused as a child by her mother’s then-husband, and authorities removed her from her mother’s care. Her brother, Phil Stearns, cut a response ad saying Amy, at 11 and 12 years old, took the worst of the abuse to protect him. Nikki Haley called Ramaswamy a bad guy. Republicans across the country backed away.

Not JD Vance. Asked by a BBC reporter in Ohio today whether the ad was appropriate, the Vice President said that wasn’t his concern. Then he said he was “a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining” about the ad instead of attacking Democrats. At a rally minutes later, he praised Ramaswamy for having the audacity to call Acton a liar on television, and told Republicans to stop whining and win the race in 13 days.

The Vice President of the United States looked at an ad weaponizing a woman’s childhood sexual abuse and said the only thing that matters is winning. That tells you everything about what this party has become.

Trump Launches Fraud Snitch Line. Did He Just Invite Americans To Report Him?

On Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump unveiled the Justice Department’s new Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program. It offers members of the public up to $30,000 for tips about criminal fraud in federal programs, backed by $25 million the Daily Beast says comes from the Treasury. JD Vance oversees it through his fraud task force. Trump promised whistleblowers a 1% commission and claimed trillions had been stolen from the country.

It took about five minutes for the internet to figure out what to do with that. One user wrote they’d like to report Donald Trump, Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and every sitting Cabinet member. Another posted a graphic about the Trump family’s crypto and overseas business deals and wrote, “You can put the $30K on my X card.” She wasn’t joking. A Reuters investigation in June estimated the Trump family made about $2.3 billion from crypto while outside investors lost about the same amount.

A reporter asked why a 1% reward beats the False Claims Act, which pays whistleblowers far more. Trump said people would make millions, then snarled at him.

A president who fired the government’s independent watchdogs now wants ordinary Americans to snitch for pocket change, while the biggest grift in Washington sits in the Oval Office. The public noticed.

Did Scott Perry Fake An Affidavit To Smear His Opponent?

Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry is in trouble. He beat former TV news anchor Janelle Stelson by just 1.3 points in 2024, and she’s back for a rematch that looks every bit as close. So his campaign put out an ad accusing Stelson of exposing herself to a child. On screen, a document labeled affidavit. It looks like a court filing.

It isn’t. Public radio station WITF found the document is a notarized statement from a Perry supporter, not a sworn affidavit. The woman is Stelson’s next-door neighbor, Sharon Orr, who has Perry signs in her yard. She says she called police on August 14 after allegedly seeing Stelson naked outdoors. Her statement doesn’t say where. She wouldn’t talk to reporters. No charges were ever filed. Perry personally approved the ad.

Stelson’s campaign manager, Alma Baker, called it “a pathetic, desperate attempt by Scott Perry to rescue his failing campaign” with easily disproven lies.

When a sitting member of Congress dresses up a neighbor’s gossip as a legal document to accuse a woman of a sex crime, that’s not campaigning. That’s character assassination, 13 days before an election.

And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, October 21, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Did the Justice Department Just Accuse American-Born Citizens of Voting Illegally?

Trump’s Justice Department handed Los Angeles County a list of 20,000 so-called likely noncitizens on California’s voter rolls, gave officials 48 hours to segregate their ballots, then sued when the state refused. Now the county has checked the list. Officials sampled 200 names and found nearly four in 10 say they were born in the United States. Around 70% had never voted. More than half were canceled or inactive registrations. Assistant Registrar Monica Flores told the court the list “is unreliable.” Meanwhile 28 green card holders were arrested in raids staged for news cameras. Omar Muñoz, 72, recovering from six surgeries, was shackled in his pajamas and marched out of his home. Ana Domínguez, 60, says she’s never voted in her life. This is a manufactured crisis, aimed squarely at the midterms.

Did a Billionaire Buy a Presidential Pardon Through Alina Habba’s Paycheck?

The New York Times reports Venezuelan billionaire Julio Herrera Velutini, accused of trying to bribe Puerto Rico’s governor, pleaded down to one misdemeanor last year. Then his family hired Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal lawyer, who at the time was a senior adviser to Pam Bondi with an office inside the Justice Department. The deal guaranteed her more than $50 million over four years as general counsel of a Florida company with no public profile. Herrera’s daughter also gave $3.5 million to a Trump-connected super PAC. Habba started January 1. Weeks later Trump handed Herrera a full and unconditional pardon. Habba says any suggestion her job “had anything to do with securing a pardon is false.” When pardons follow the money this openly, justice becomes one more thing the rich can buy.

Economist Fires Back at Musk, Says Pay Your Taxes Instead of Playing Santa

Elon Musk announced he’ll give one SpaceX share, worth about $146, to every child in America next year, routed through Trump Accounts. Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman answered him directly. If Musk really wants to help, he wrote, “pay more taxes.” Zucman noted that billionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than the average American. The whole giveaway comes to about $10.5 billion, barely 1% of Musk’s $904 billion fortune, and it lets him sidestep roughly $2.5 billion in capital gains taxes. Zucman backs Bernie Sanders’s Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, a 5% annual wealth tax on about 938 billionaires that would raise $4.4 trillion over 10 years. Musk alone would owe $42 billion. Charity is what oligarchs offer when they’d rather not be taxed.

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Over 900 Women Arrested for Their Pregnancies. Is This the Freedom They Promised?

A new report from Pregnancy Justice counts more than 900 women charged with pregnancy-related crimes in the first three years after Roe fell. That’s nearly one a day, and likely an undercount. Three states dominate. South Carolina with 381, Oklahoma with 222, Alabama with 204, all fetal personhood strongholds. Thirteen cases involved getting, attempting, or merely researching an abortion, with internet searches used as evidence. In 550 cases the only allegation was substance use, some of it prescribed. In 77 cases, a lack of prenatal care was cited as proof of a crime, in states driving OBGYNs out. And in 700 cases, the tip came from a medical setting. Doctors and nurses turned their own patients in. Pregnancy Justice president Lourdes Rivera says this “is already happening.” When the hospital becomes a police station, no woman is safe seeking care.

Police Raid RFK Jr.’s Favorite Vaccine Researchers in West Africa

Judicial police in Guinea-Bissau raided the Bandim Health Project on Monday and seized a batch of hepatitis B vaccines. The project is run by Danish researchers Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn, the pair Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once called “the deities of vaccine research.” Their planned trial would withhold the hepatitis B birth dose from thousands of newborns where roughly one in five adults carries a virus that causes liver cancer. The World Health Organization called it unethical. Guinea-Bissau’s health minister says the government never approved it. Yet Kennedy’s CDC reportedly set aside another $1.6 million in September to push it forward, and Stabell Benn sat on the US advisory panel that voted to end the universal birth dose here. Denmark is investigating the pair for scientific misconduct. Their babies and ours are the experiment.

Crazy Alert. Inflation Comes for the MAGA Hat. Will Trump’s Base Finally Notice?

The Washington Sun dug through the Wayback Machine and found Trump’s red Make America Great Again hat sold for $25 in 2015, $30 on January 6, 2021, and now $55 on the Trump Organization’s store. That’s a 120% jump, nearly three times the 41% inflation over the same stretch. His Victory 47 perfume went from $99 to $249 after they stuck a tiny Trump on the bottle. A Knoxville Trump superstore closed in August even at 50% off. Professor Todd Belt called the hikes “tone-deaf” when 84% of voters say the economy drives their midterm vote and 77% disapprove of Trump on inflation. The man who promised to kill inflation on day one is now gouging his own believers. If the hat costs more, so does everything else.

And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, October 21, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann

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Did California Millionaires Just Turn On Their Billionaire Cousins?

More than 40 California multimillionaires signed an open letter this week urging voters to pass Proposition 40, the one-time 5% tax on the wealth of the state’s billionaires. The letter was organized by Patriotic Millionaires and Tax The Ultra Rich Now, and it doesn’t mince words. The signers say they can afford to live anywhere and choose California because they love it. They call the billionaire tax a very sensible solution to a looming healthcare disaster, and they point straight at the roughly 200 billionaires who’ve spent millions trying to kill it. In their words, “It’s past time for billionaires, our thousand millionaire cousins, to do theirs.” Prop 40 would raise tens of billions of dollars, with 90% of the money going to healthcare after Trump’s big ugly bill stripped coverage from more than a million Californians. Here’s the catch. Voters have to vote yes on 40 and no on Propositions 41 and 42, because billionaire money put two spoiler measures on the same ballot. If either one gets more votes than 40, the tax dies. Polling shows support hovering just under 50% When the rich start saying tax us, that’s not charity. That’s democracy starting to claw back what oligarchy took.

$32 Million Airline CEO Breaks Ranks and Demands a Wealth Tax

Scott Kirby runs United Airlines. He took home about $32.3 million last year. And in an interview with The New York Times published Sunday, he said something you almost never hear from a corporate boardroom. He said wealth inequality has become a danger to our society. He called for a national wealth tax, and he said inheritance taxes should get close to 100% at some level. His exact words were, “I would pay them.” Kirby argued the tax has to be national, not state by state, because the rich will just move. He didn’t name a rate or a threshold. Right now the federal estate tax tops out at 40% and exempts the first $15 million per person. Fox Business sneered that a $32 million CEO was lecturing America, and its anchors spent the morning calling it double taxation and hypocrisy, since United charges you extra to escape a middle seat. Fine. Kirby’s no saint. But think about what it means when the people at the very top of the ladder start saying the ladder’s about to tip over. They can see the pitchforks from up there. The question is whether Congress can.

Texas Republicans Plot to Gut the Lieutenant Governor’s Office If a Democrat Wins

Here’s what happens when Republicans think they might lose. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is in real trouble. Public and private GOP polling shows him potentially losing next month to Democratic state Representative Vikki Goodwin, a lawmaker Patrick’s own attack ads made famous. So, according to Harvey Kronberg’s Quorum Report, multiple sources say Republicans are preparing to strip the lieutenant governor of all legislative powers if Goodwin wins. The lieutenant governor presides over the Texas Senate and holds enormous sway over committee assignments and which bills reach the floor. But most of those powers come from Senate rules that senators approve at the start of every session. A Republican majority could simply rewrite them. The Texas Tribune laid out that playbook last week. Goodwin told the Tribune, “I’ll figure out ways to get things done.” She also pointed out that the core powers, like being next in line for governor, are written into the state constitution. No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since Bob Bullock left that very job in 1999. And Patrick already faces a police complaint from Goodwin over AI deepfake images of her his campaign used. So the rules only count when Republicans win? That’s not democracy. That’s a rigged game, and voters should remember who rigged it.

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Public Citizen Drops a Report Exposing Trump’s MAHA Betrayal

Remember Make America Healthy Again? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to get toxic chemicals out of our food, our water, and our air. A lot of people believed him and voted for Trump because of it. On Monday the watchdog group Public Citizen checked the receipts. Of the 21 environmental chemicals the White House’s own May 2025 MAHA Report pledged to address, 20 have gotten less regulation under Trump, not more. For nine of them, including the cancer-linked herbicide atrazine, mercury, and PFAS forever chemicals, the administration actively loosened the rules. Trump’s EPA rolled back drinking water limits on forever chemicals, weakened air pollution rules, and went easy on glyphosate. Public Citizen calls those the most egregious betrayals of the movement that helped elect him. The lone exception was microplastics, where the administration took what the report describes as at best a baby step, saying it might consider regulation someday. Research director Peter Whoriskey put it bluntly. He said “MAHA is worse than an empty slogan.” This is the oldest con in the book. Sell working people a promise about their kids’ health, then hand the pen to the chemical lobby. The MAHA moms got a slogan. The polluters got a permit.

Did Mortgage Rates Just Push the Housing Market Into a Deep Freeze?

New September numbers came out today and they’re grim. Pending home sales, that’s signed contracts on existing homes, fell 7.3% from August and 11.3% from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. Economists expected half a percent. The index dropped to 66, the lowest reading since tracking began in 2001. Every region fell, with the West down more than 9% and the South, the nation’s biggest housing market, down more than 8%. Why? Mortgage rates. The 30-year fixed started September around 6.8% and hit 7.6% by the end of the month, and it’s still climbing. Builders are pulling back too. Housing starts fell 4.6% to an annual pace of 859,000, the lowest in a year, and homebuilder confidence hit a 14-year low. NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun said “housing affordability is more affected by changes in mortgage rates” than by job gains. Trump promised cheaper homes. Instead a whole generation is locked out, sellers are frozen in place, and the American dream of owning a home keeps slipping further out of reach for working families.

Could America’s $1.7 Trillion Car Loan Bubble Be About to Burst?

Americans now owe $1.7 trillion on their cars. That’s more than all the credit card debt in the country. And a new Reuters analysis, picked up by CarBuzz, warns the whole thing could come crashing down. The average new car payment has jumped from $550 a month in 2019 to $765 today. To make those payments fit, lenders stretched loans out to seven and even eight years. More than 30% of subprime loans written this year won’t be paid off until the car is over 12 years old. In 2019 that figure was under 6%. People will owe money on cars that no longer run. Meanwhile, the share of subprime auto loans at least 60 days late is hovering around 6%, near the highest level in more than 30 years. Pandemic stimulus made budgets look healthier than they were, lenders wrote loans they shouldn’t have, and now the bills are due. CarBuzz warns this could “shake the auto industry to its core.” This isn’t a story about reckless borrowers. It’s a story about wages that haven’t kept up with prices for 40 years, and a system that profits by lending working people into a hole. We’ve seen this movie before. It was called 2008.

And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, October 20, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Did Trump’s Team Try to Turn the Government’s Own Cyber Cops Into Election Hackers?

ProPublica reports that early in Trump’s second term, political appointees at Homeland Security asked CISA, the agency that protects our voting systems, to secretly buy a voting machine, hack it, and report back to the White House. They were told not to warn the manufacturer about any flaws. One former official said, “This goes against everything CISA represents.” The request only died because DOGE had already laid off the experts who could’ve done it. The administration has since pushed out more than 1,000 CISA employees, a third of the agency, and Trump’s budget would cut another $700 million. State election officials say CISA simply vanished during midterm planning. Arizona’s Adrian Fontes told the new acting director to his face he didn’t trust him. Fire the referees, recruit the hackers. That’s not election security. That’s a setup

Is the Justice Department Building a Pretext to Toss California Ballots?

The Justice Department charged 28 green card holders in California Monday with registering or voting illegally. Eleven have been arrested. The felonies carry up to five years. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter says all 28 came from a list of 20,000 “likely noncitizens” the feds handed California last week, demanding the state set aside their mail ballots. California refused, calling the demand illegal and noting the DOJ never explained how it built the list. So the DOJ sued, and it won’t rule out prosecuting election workers who process those ballots. Election law expert Rick Hasen says the charges are meant to make noncitizen voting “look like a bigger issue than it is.” Noncitizen voting has never been found to be widespread. Twenty-eight cases out of 22 million voters isn’t a crisis. It’s a pretext. Watch what they do with it.

Why Is Trump Waiting Until After the Election to Garnish Your Paycheck?

The Washington Sun reports the Trump administration is preparing to unleash private debt collectors on nearly 10 million Americans in default on federal student loans, garnishing wages and seizing tax refunds starting next year. Treasury could hire collectors as soon as November. But the announcement waits until after the midterms because, as one source put it, “It would be politically insane to do this before the midterms.” Staffers warned that plenty of those borrowers voted for Trump. Economist Marshall Steinbaum notes these are overwhelmingly people whose debts would’ve been erased by Biden’s cancellation plan before Republican states killed it in court. Michael Pierce of Protect Borrowers calls what’s coming a catastrophe for families. One strategist’s advice to Democrats? Get loud. If they’re hiding the plan until after you vote, that tells you who it’s for.

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Can Forty Multimillionaires Shame the Billionaires Into Paying Up?

More than 40 California multimillionaires signed an open letter backing Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on wealth over a billion dollars, funding health care programs gutted by Republican Medicaid cuts. They say fears of billionaires fleeing are overblown. In their words, “We have no intention of leaving our beloved Golden State.” The letter lands as billionaire opponents pour millions into killing the measure. California has more than 200 billionaires holding over $2 trillion, and economists estimate the tax raises about $100 billion. It’d be the first billionaire tax anywhere in the world. When the merely rich tell the obscenely rich to pay their share, something’s shifting. November 3rd is the test.

What Is the Pentagon Hiding About the True Cost of Trump’s Iran War?

Five Senate Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren wrote CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper demanding the Pentagon publicly release its estimate of the damage Iranian strikes did to American bases. The Pentagon told Congress the war cost $43.6 billion as of September 3rd, but that figure leaves out base damage entirely. Lawmakers saw that number in a classified briefing, and the senators say “there is no rationale for classifying that cost estimate.” The Pentagon’s own inspector general found Iranian attacks damaged or destroyed hundreds of structures across eight countries. More than 50,000 troops deployed. At least 21 killed, 865 wounded, and the Pentagon has repeatedly undercounted casualties. They want unclassified answers by November 2nd. A war Congress never authorized, with a price tag they won’t show you. That’s not national security. That’s hiding the bill from the people paying it.

Crazy Alert. Melania Dodges Trump’s Kiss...

At a Rose Garden ceremony Monday where Trump signed an executive order on women’s health, he leaned in to kiss the First Lady, and Melania turned her head so far his lips landed in her hair. Journalist Aaron Rupar posted the clip and it blew past 100,000 views. The Tennessee Holler wrote, “She turned like his lips were tasers.” Keith Olbermann piled on. Trump then handed her a pen and wondered aloud whether her signature meant anything, after joking that she’s not so easy to please. Melania’s reply? His was the one that mattered. Mario Nawfal summed it up as marriage at the White House sounding exhausting. The man who can’t land a kiss on his own wife wants control of your ballot, your paycheck, and your future.

And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, October 20, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Wall Street Insider Sounds Alarm, Warns AI Bubble Is About to Pop Just Like Dot-Com

Charles Gasparino isn’t some lefty economist. He’s the New York Post’s Wall Street guy, and this weekend he wrote that the AI bubble is about to burst and a big market correction is coming. He compares it to March of 2000, when the dot-com mania collapsed, a generation of investors got burned, and the tech market took years to recover. Back then, people who’d never read a balance sheet thought they were Warren Buffett. Sound familiar? Gasparino says the sales pitch today is nearly identical. Groundbreaking technology, which is true, that’ll make all of us rich and not just the oligarchs behind it, which really isn’t. He points to last week’s spiking interest rates after a bad inflation report, followed by a selloff in AI stocks, and says the smart money at hedge funds is already taking profits. He warns rates will keep climbing because AI borrowing is competing with the federal government’s massive debt, and the whole thing is built on debt, the main ingredient of every crash. His advice is to “take your profits and not get greedy.” When this bubble pops, the billionaires will have already cashed out. It’s your 401k that takes the hit. That’s how it always works.

Did France’s Prime Minister Just Blame the Left for a Mess Neoliberalism Made?

France just lived through its worst weekend of unrest in years. Around 550,000 people marched Saturday against the cost of living and crumbling public services. Nearly 2,400 were arrested, close to 1,000 police were injured, and at least 3,000 businesses were damaged. Protesters torched the city hall in Limoges. So what did Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu do Monday morning? He ordered partial curfews in city centers starting tonight, and blamed it all on the “ultra-left” and criminal elements. Here’s what he didn’t say. This movement started last month with high school kids in the working-class suburbs of Paris fed up with teacher shortages and crumbling classrooms. It grew because Lecornu’s government is pushing 54 billion euros in budget cuts while fuel prices climb and working families can’t make ends meet. He’s Macron’s seventh prime minister, and the last one got thrown out for pushing austerity. This isn’t the left’s doing. This is 40 years of neoliberalism. Cut taxes on the rich, cut services for everyone else, and then act shocked when people take to the streets. Marine Le Pen is now the frontrunner for next year’s presidential election. That’s what happens when governments answer economic pain with curfews instead of solutions.

Can Democrats Really Flip House Seats Trump Won by 20 Points?

Deep-red districts are now House battlegrounds. That’s the Washington Post’s headline this morning, and the numbers back it up. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report now lists 46 competitive races, 21 of them pure toss-ups, and 16 of those toss-ups are held by Republicans. Cook moved 11 more races toward Democrats last Friday, on top of 18 the week before, every one in the Democrats’ direction. Montana’s open 1st district, which Trump carried by 12 points, is now a toss-up. Upstate New York’s 21st, which Trump won by more than 20, is in play because Trump’s trade war with Canada has gutted the local economy. Cook says scores of districts Trump won by 10 or more are now firmly in play, half of them in Ohio, Nebraska and Kansas, where voters are furious about the economy. Two things are driving this. Open seats in districts Trump won by double digits, and mid-decade gerrymanders that aren’t holding. A district in eastern North Carolina that Republicans redrew to be safe is now a toss-up. Democrats need a net gain of four seats. The Republican House left town early with no more workdays before the election. When the gerrymanders stop working, all that’s left is the voters. That’s democracy doing its job.

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Why Are Canada and Europe Racing to Escape Elon Musk’s Satellite Chokehold?

Prime Minister Mark Carney told the New York Times that “Starlink, we will diversify away from, no question.” Ottawa has put 1.44 billion dollars into Telesat Lightspeed, a Canadian satellite network, and a 2.3 billion dollar defense contract in August pushed the planned constellation to 225 satellites. Ontario already killed a 100 million dollar Starlink deal last year. More than half of Canada’s provinces and territories buy emergency communications from Musk, including ambulance and wildfire response, and Musk once reposted a suggestion that he cut Canada off because British Columbia excluded Tesla from a rebate. Europe is scrambling too. The EU’s IRIS2 system won’t launch until 2029, so Brussels is pooling capacity through Govsatcom and leaning on Eutelsat’s OneWeb. And here’s the kicker. Semafor reports the American ambassador told the Financial Times that the EU would face devastating retaliation if it tries to curtail SpaceX’s market reach. Think about that. Our government is threatening our allies to protect one billionaire’s monopoly. That’s what happens when critical infrastructure sits in the hands of one man with a grudge and a social media account. Sovereignty means owning your own wires, even in space.

Republican Congressman Begs Musk to Keep On Starlink So Ukraine Can Stop the Missiles

Dan Crenshaw is a Republican congressman from Texas who lost his reelection bid in March, and in the Washington Post this morning he’s pleading with Elon Musk to activate Starlink over Russia. Why? Because Ukraine’s run out of Patriot interceptors, and the only other way to stop Russian ballistic missiles is to hit the launchers before they fire. Kyiv wants Starlink-guided drones to strike those launchers up to 200 kilometers inside Russia. Musk won’t flip the switch. Worse, the Telegraph reports Musk went to Trump and proposed slowing Starlink speeds in Ukraine, and Trump agreed. Drones got capped at about 160 kilometers an hour, half the speed of the Russian jet drones they’re meant to intercept. Zelensky says they couldn’t shoot down a number of them, and civilians died. Trump says he didn’t do it. Musk says the Pentagon did. Nobody will own it. Meanwhile Musk posted that Ukraine needs a new leader. Crenshaw told Musk that refusing is like “watching your friend die while you hold his EpiPen over him.” When a Republican has to beg a billionaire for permission to let an ally defend itself, we’ve handed foreign policy to a private citizen. That’s not a democracy. That’s an oligarchy with a launch pad.

Trump Strips Kennedy Center of Its Treasures and Hangs Gold-Leaf Portraits of Himself and Musk

A former Kennedy Center curator says his heart sank when he walked into the Africa Lounge and found it stripped bare in a single day. Josef Palermo, laid off in March and now a whistleblower, told CNN the room held dozens of works gifted by African nations, including 12-foot doors carved from a 700-year-old Nigerian tree. It’s a storage room now. Palermo says he was told last year to remove all the outdoor art because Trump wanted brand new art for the reopening. The “Blue” sculpture came down in September. Internal documents show officials drafted a plan for permanently removing artwork, including by public sale or destruction. Donors and artists’ families have been calling for months, some afraid to speak out while their pieces are still inside. One donor said, “I want to get that sculpture out of there.” These were gifts honoring John F. Kennedy after his assassination. Italy gave the marble. France gave Matisse tapestries. Austria gave a chandelier. So what’s going up instead? Gold-leaf portraits of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, courtesy of a brand new visual arts committee. The center, where Trump chairs the board, is closed for two years. Kings build monuments to themselves. Republics build them to ideas. Guess which we’ve got.

And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, October 19, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Two Thirds Of America Call Trump A Crook. Can The GOP Survive The Midterms?

A new Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos poll just dropped, and it’s a wreck for Donald Trump. His approval is down to 33%, the lowest of either term. 66% disapprove. Three out of four Americans say he’s botched inflation and the cost of living. And here’s the killer number. 66% say Trump is using the presidency to enrich himself, up from 56& last fall. That includes 73% of independents and more than a quarter of Republicans. Eight in 10 say slapping his name on the Kennedy Center was inappropriate. And for the first time since 2014, voters trust Democrats over Republicans on the economy. When two thirds of a country believe its president is a crook, that’s not a polling problem. That’s a legitimacy problem.

Will Israel Make Its Hard Right Turn Permanent?

On October 27, Israelis vote in an election that could lock in nationalism for a generation. Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s run the country on and off for 19 years, wants a new mandate after reducing Gaza to rubble, occupying part of Lebanon, and bombing Iran. He’s under an ICC arrest warrant. His challenger is Gadi Eisenkot, a former army chief who says Netanyahu owns October 7th. It’s a dead heat. Neither bloc is near the 61 seats needed to govern. Only 21% of Israelis identify as left of center. Finance Minister Smotrich wants Gaza’s two million Palestinians “voluntarily” removed. Ben Gvir’s armed settlers attack West Bank Palestinians with impunity. Netanyahu swears he’ll never partner with Arab parties, a fifth of the country. And Trump just endorsed him. Democracies don’t die in one election. But they can get locked in.

Trump’s Fraud Hunters Find No Fraud. So Who Are They Hunting Instead?

Remember the White House task force Trump set up to prove the election was stolen? The Washington Post reports it’s found no fraud. Zero. So it switched jobs. Led by pro-Trump journalist John Solomon, it’s now dumping records from Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and Jack Smith’s classified documents case, and on Friday, State Department emails from officials who testified at Trump’s first impeachment. Trump allies call it evidence for the Justice Department’s sprawling Florida conspiracy case aimed at indicting the people who investigated him. Legal experts told the Post the records mostly show routine, court approved investigative work. And it all still sits on the White House website under the heading “election integrity.” This is what retribution looks like when it wears a badge. Investigate the president, and the president investigates you.

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Did Trump Just Sell Out Ukraine For Putin’s Diesel?

Sunday on Truth Social, Trump melted down. Late Friday he’d signed an order waiving the sweeping Russia sanctions Congress passed last month, the late Lindsey Graham’s bill, which Trump himself signed. Then he cut a diesel deal with Putin. Then he blamed Zelenskyy for high fuel prices, though oil experts say the real culprit is his war on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Now he claims sanctions would scare Russia from the bargaining table, and that Russia’s going easy on Iran so he wants to keep it that way. Lawmakers in both parties revolted. Harvard’s Joseph Allen called it a disgraceful message from a man “not worthy” of the presidency. Zelenskyy says the move rewards Putin. Russian diesel money buys Russian missiles. Every one of them now has Trump’s signature on it.

Russia Is Raping Ukrainians As A Weapon Of War. Where’s Washington?

A piece on Timothy Snyder’s Substack by journalist Sara Cincurova should be required reading at the White House. She’s spent two years gathering testimony from more than 60 Ukrainian survivors of Russian sexual violence. Her conclusion is blunt. This is strategy, not soldiers out of control. A UN commission found in 2024 that Russian rape amounts to a war crime and torture. Ukraine’s prosecutors have recorded 250 rapes of women and 24 of children, and the real number is far higher. Men in Russian captivity describe electric shocks to the genitals, and threats of castration meant to stop Ukrainians from reproducing. There’s Halyna, a retiree raped by a soldier her grandson’s age. And Olena, raped while pregnant, who lost the baby and hasn’t seen her imprisoned son in seven years. This is the regime Trump just handed a sanctions waiver.

Where’s The $10 Billion America Promised Its Disaster Victims?

The Guardian reports survivors of the LA wildfires, the St Louis tornado and the Texas Hill Country floods are still waiting on federal recovery money. Nothing’s gone out since Hurricane Milton in October 2024. LA County and St Louis alone need more than $10 billion. The HUD program that rebuilds homes after FEMA leaves has no standing fund, so Congress votes disaster by disaster. In July they wrote it into law, then funded nothing. Demetrice Davis, whose St Louis home is still wrecked, says “the government agencies are not really doing what they’re supposed to do.” Congresswoman Judy Chu says Trump still hasn’t delivered. 137 million Americans lived in a disaster zone in 2024. Washington’s message to them is simple. You’re on your own.

And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, October 19, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Can AI Rewrite What You Remember? MIT Scientists Say It Already Does

Pattie Maes at the MIT Media Lab showed 200 people 24 ordinary photos. After a break, some saw the same pictures again. Others saw versions AI had altered, with soldiers dropped in or signs of climate change painted on. People who saw the AI-edited images reported 67% more false memories. Turn those images into video and false memories doubled. Everyone knew the material was AI-generated. It didn’t matter. A separate Georgetown study found a misleading AI summary cut correct recall of a car crash from 84% to 45%. Police departments are already using AI to write body cam reports. Georgetown’s Mattea Sim says, “AI is a new method of delivering misinformation.” Democracy runs on shared memory. When machines can edit the past, whoever owns the machines owns the truth.

Anthropic Sounds the Alarm as AI Worms Close In on Your Kitchen

Anthropic’s safety team released a report Monday. Small AI models, they say, are months away from copying themselves onto internet-connected devices with no data center at all. Smart ovens. Security cameras. Off-brand Android TV boxes. Their red team bought 15 of those boxes for about $55 each, with just four gigabytes of memory apiece, wired them together and ran a 26 billion parameter model on them. In one test an AI copied itself across those boxes with no human help. Unlike old malware, these worms can figure out unfamiliar devices on their own, and there’s no central switch to flip. The company warned, “A replicator like this would be challenging to shut down.” The industry that built this is begging for guardrails. Congress is nowhere. That’s a choice.

Did RFK Jr. Help Spread the Raw Milk Craze? Pediatricians Demand a Nationwide Ban

The American Academy of Pediatrics called last week for a nationwide ban on selling raw milk and raw cheese. Raw milk sales jumped 17.6% in 2024, pushed by wellness influencers and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who vowed to end the FDA’s crackdown on raw milk, then downed a shot in the White House. He’s since gone quiet. More than 100 people got sick this summer and 11 were hospitalized. An E. coli outbreak across California, Florida and Texas was traced to cheese from Raw Farm, the country’s biggest raw dairy. Most victims were three or under. Biologist Petra Levin says “there is a relatively high likelihood that you can get a pathogen.” When a cabinet secretary teaches Americans to distrust the regulators who keep milk safe, kids end up in the hospital. That’s the MAHA legacy.

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Who Drove Your Water Bill Up 62%? A New Report Names Polluters, Privatizers and Washington

Food and Water Watch studied the 500 biggest water systems, serving 155 million people. Between 2015 and 2025 the average water bill rose 62%. That’s faster than inflation and double the rise in grocery prices. Bills grew 19% faster than household incomes, and in Louisiana, Maryland, New Hampshire and West Virginia, twice as fast. A family in Idaho paid about $286 last year. In West Virginia, 1,383. For-profit water companies charge more than public ones. The report blames “industrial pollution, aging infrastructure, and federal disinvestment.” The utilities say they need $2.4 trillion over 25 years, and if ratepayers alone foot that bill, it could more than double by 2050. Water isn’t a product. It’s a public trust, and we’re selling it off one pipe at a time.

Experts Break the Silence on Death and Say Facing It Makes Life Better

Grief researcher Lucy Hone, who lost her daughter Abi, says we live in grief-illiterate and grief-phobic societies. Philosopher Todd May says death violates our forward-looking nature. Death doula Alua Arthur says it reminds us we’re not in control. Hospice doctor Luyi Kathy Zhang says most of us can’t sit with hard feelings. Hone points to history. In 1912, two-thirds of Bostonians died at home. By the 1970s, two-thirds of Americans died in hospitals. Don’t be ashamed of the fear. Write your will and an advance directive. Ask who you need to thank, apologize to, or forgive. Spend five minutes remembering someone who died. Hone says, “Accepting that we’re going to die allows us to live more purposefully.” A society that can’t look at death can’t look at much of anything honestly.

Will Trump Bully the Senate Into Permanent Daylight Time? Scientists Warn It’ll Hurt Your Kids

Clocks fall back November 1, and Donald Trump wants it to be the last time. The Sunshine Protection Act, which locks in permanent daylight saving time, passed the House this summer. On October 3, Trump posted what he said was Senator Tom Cotton’s personal cellphone number. Cotton still says no. A new analysis in the Canadian Medical Association Journal says permanent standard time is what our bodies need. Our clocks run on morning light, and Ralph Mistlberger explains, “Permanent daylight saving time moves that light an hour later.” K12 found 94 of the 100 largest school districts would send kids to school in the dark 117 mornings a year, versus 35 under standard time. Nixon tried this in 1974 and reversed it within a year. Science says one thing. Trump says another. Guess who Congress hears.

And that’s the way it is, Today Friday October 16, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

RFK Jr.’s raw milk legacy sickens kids

Water bills jump 62%

Facing death honestly

Trump bullies the Senate over clocks